Where focus gets something finished on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - well it was one of those social weeks where there was a lot of dining out... and it was very nice...but I do believe that a week of staying home would be a good idea too... gotta work on that... I do feel like I used my time at home productively for a change... I was bouncing from one project to another... "like a BB in a boxcar" my dear Dad would say... but I found some focus and picked back up Every Opening Flower by With Thy Needle & Thread and ... ta dah!!!  I have a FINISH!!! An aside these pictures are a little murky...don't know why... sorry...

Now this is 2 years in the making... it was the first sampler I worked on for my "7 samplers for my 70th" ... and I told myself earlier this month that I wanted it done by the end of  September... and I DID IT!!!  

Filling in the house was very soothing... and I needed that...

and I love the vase of flowers...

and that bird with its Smyrna cross wings... swoon...

and the bees buzzing around the bee skep..

now when I was nearing the end I thought about what would be the last little bit I'd stitch... and  I thought it would be the windows on the house ... but in the end I added some backstitching around the wings of the bees and that was that... 

This is a big sampler... 12" x 13" roughly on 32 ct linen I painted with Rit Aquamarine dye... I'm hoping to send this off to the framer this week as I'm rearranging the wall of samplers in my living room...I've been thinking about this re-vamp for a while but an incident at 6 am the other morning set the project in motion. Sooooo I was sound asleep and BAM!!! What was that???  Is someone trying to break into my house?  Nope... it was this sign falling off the wall in the living room...

 this is metal and it isn't super heavy and it has been up on that wall for probably 9 years...now it was hung with those 3M Command hooks as the walls in my house are made of some material that is almost impenetrable... you have to have drill to put a hole in the wall... and while I have a drill the Command hooks are easier... and have held up pretty well... mostly... anyway I have been thinking of re-locating this sign to the back hallway so I can put more samplers on this wall in the living room... and Every Opening Flower is definitely one I want up on this wall. I have a long narrow one ... The Drawn Thread's  Sunnyside Sampler...

that would fit nicely in the space where the HOME sign was... but that would just be sorta temporary as  I really want to hang the WTN&T  Summer Schoolhouse, Lessons in Abecdarian there... at the moment this is where I am on that project...

gotta long way to go... but as I tell myself every stitch is more one than you had before and I will get there... eventually. Rather than space things out I think I'm going to re- arrange the samplers on the wall very close together and keep adding to the wall as I complete other samplers... and this would hopefully motivate me to finish a couple of the big ones I have in the works... if I put things up with Command hooks I can change my mind more easily.. and if you know anything about me I do like to change things up... all the time!! LOL

And before I change things up and put out the Halloween stuff (nice segue huh?)   here's some more of my Fall decor... this is the small shelf unit...

From the top ... an assortment of Hobby Lobby decor... the wagon, the little pumpkins and that blue-ish screen piece... the little tile with the basket of pumpkins is from  The Cat's Meow Village   I had  a whole collection of these tiles and just recently found them...

On the right side I have a pumpkin mini quilt done in Sandy Gervais fabrics and The Drawn Thread Welcome Autumn ... I stitch this on 32 ct linen I dyed... probably used Aquamarine ... or maybe Evening Blue... I forget...

The two shelves below... on the left, and from left to right, middle shelf... I have Pineberry Lane's Gather  and Barbara Ana's Autumn Keeper and  a piece from Lizzie Kate's Autumn Smalls ... and on the bottom shelf is the Flowerpot Sampler by From the Heart Needleart and a freebie from  PinkernPunkin's Pumpkin & Bittersweet  and on the very far right side my version of The Stitcherhood's  Quaker Pumpkin. 

Sorry for the weird angle of the pictures... I usually move the chair to get a better shot but my shoulder was hurting and I didn't want to strain it any more to get the pictures. 

Sooooo September is basically over...not sure how that happened... and I might get motivated to put out the Halloween stuff later in the week... in the past couple of years I've kinda replaced the Fall cross stitch with Halloween cross stitch and then added in some knickknacks... not too hard to do... and I'm all about doing things the easy way... we'll see how the week goes... 

Last week it rained a lot... we needed it ... my grass looks so much better ... however all that rain is a double edged sword... my flower beds still look really good... and by the first of October last year I had all the beds cleaned out... this year the dahlias and the cleome and the cannas are still going strong  so I'm not ready to do that job... right now if the weather holds and the 10 day forecast says it will, I can postpone that job for a bit longer... but I'm still dreading it... but it has to be done. 

Plans for the week... trying to stay home more... spent most of Friday and all day Saturday not leaving the house...not sure I really got a lot more accomplished but it felt good... quiet and calm and cozy... have plans to do dinner with Elliott and his parents and his other grandparents... he wants to give us a talk about his favorite things in the whole wide world ... Lego Mixels...  here's history... these were manufactured from 2014-2016... Elliott wasn't even born till 2019 so all of these Legoes have been purchased on the secondary market... good thing Dad has great search talents on eBay... anyway I don't know as much as Elliott does about them, but I do know there are 81 separate characters... Elliott knows all their names and the names of their tribes (3 to a tribe... and then as I remember you can combine the 3 characters in the tribe into a Murp...but there is also a combination called a Mix and a Max and something called a Nixel...  and I can see that I need the TED talk Elliott plans to give... LOL 

I might sew a bit this week...I really should FFO some pieces that have been languishing... and I think I'll start on that Christmas sampler  from Blackbird Designs, The Bells on Christmas Day... I dyed a piece of linen that will work for it ...and I pulled the flosses ... but I think I'll  "green" it up a bit... and add in some turquoise... Weeks Teal Frost to be precise... I used it in the Blackbird Designs Feliz Navidad sampler which you can see here and I really like that pop of color. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... hope your week ahead is a good one...

happy  stitching-

carol fun 

A bunch of different things on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well this week, like many other weeks I've had, has gotten away from me... I was out of the house waaaay too many days which resulted in not much craftyness... as always I have high hopes for this coming week. It is supposed to be a rainy one and boy do we need rain... and rainy days should give me the time and motivation to get some sewing done... I have two more Christmas quilts I want to get to...fingers crossed... and there is one more Christmas cross stitch sampler I want to complete... and none of these projects are started at all... sigh... 

It was a HOT week weather wise... those lovely Fall-ish days we had disappeared and Summer returned with a vengeance... upper 80's to low 90's... had to close the windows and turn on the AC... my sprinkler system and drip irrigation has gotten quite a work out... my flowers and my grass still look pretty good... last year when we had this kind of weather everything just turned brown and died... so I'm getting what I wanted from the purchase. 

Here's a couple of pics of the yard...the front...

the side...

the cleome took over the front yard so the pinks and purples dominate  the front of  the house... and the dahlias and the zinnias dominate the side yard... since I live on the corner I have 2 front yards... and I will say I have the greenest grass in the neighborhood... the lawn is patchy in places...needs re-seeding... but until it rains it isn't worth doing...

and here's a bunch of the dahlias... this is the time of year they shine...don't ask the names as I didn't make any notes ... I just know they are pretty!

And I have to show you this elephant ear, Latin name Colocasia... it is HUGE! my rough measurement is almost 3 ft... 

As far as decor, I'm happy with the Fall stuff I've gotten out... I got rid of some older decorations and I need to go through what I didn't put out and see what is worth keeping and what needs to be donated... my goal is to reduce the Fall decor by one bin... and I'm being more judicious about what I'm buying these days. Something has to be really special before I purchase it. I find myself adding more cross stitch pieces versus knickknacks... which I think is a good thing... here's are some small displays I've put together...

This is in my TV cabinet... mercury glass pumpkins and Blackbird Designs... at one time both of these pieces were called Bittersweet September...

now the one up top with the alphabet is Bittersweet September ... and the one with no alphabet on the bottom  is Bittersweet Lane...  but both are beautiful in my humble opinion..

In the telephone niche in the hallway I have a collection of pumpkin knickknacks and the little lady from the Pineberry Lane pattern Cats & Jacks  plopped in a tiny wheelbarrow... 

and below is Lizzie Kate's Thankful String... when I stitched this back in 2019 I wasn't sure I like this framing and thought about changing it... but I never have... so I guess I do like it after all... LOL

This tiny tier tray has  Lizzie Kate's Autumn piece from the the chart Seasons up top... and below is a companion piece from the Pineberry Lane chart Cats & Jacks hitching a ride in the bed of a truck...  can you tell I like to pair small cross stitch pieces with knickknacks?  Cause I love little cross stitch pieces and knickknacks!!

And speaking of cross stitch...nice segue right?  The only thing I worked on was the Shakespeare's Peddler  Jenny's House which I'm calling Carol's House... 

now I LOVE that tree... I think I have all the branches stitched... in order to keep track of where I was I would stitch a branch and then cross it off the chart ... same way with the trunk of the tree and now the leaves... it does slow down the stitching but I think I avoided leaving anything out... 

I actually spent some time in my sewing room this week... that hasn't happened for a long time...not sure why... but it felt good to sew.  I got the binding on not one but two quilts!  yeah me!!

The first is this bed size Giant Disappearing Nine Patch done in Brenda Gervais Fall fabrics... and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this!!   

It is so rich looking in my humble opinion... the purple and the teals are a great addition to the traditional oranges and browns ...  here's a close up  of the panto... oak leaves and acorns...

As a companion piece I got the binding on this smaller Brenda Gervais  4 patch quilt that I put on the easy chair in my bedroom...

 I like having two coordinating quilts in that room. 

Plans for next week... there are still several quilts that need a binding... and several quilts I want to start... and I may put "Carol's House" aside and stitch on something Christmas... but if this arrives in my mail box all bets are off... 

This is an exclusive from Teresa Kogut called Scarecrow Lane... I found out about it from this Flosstube video which linked me up to the FB group Homespun Needlework. You have to ask to join the group and then if you look for Julie Kursave's post she explains things... it is ordered from the shop Shepherd's Needle which I think this link works...

Now since I've purchased a kit I will stitch the whole sampler...but not this year... however I am going to stitch up several of those scarecrows as little pillows... they are too stinking cute !! I do LOVE everything about this sampler... that border is stunning... and the funky birds along with those scarecrows... I could  NOT resist and I gifted it to me for my birthday... I'm a really good gift giver... LOL

As for my present from my kids... well they know me well... I got another giant 8 ft tall  inflatable chicken!! This time it is a Halloween chicken... we're calling her Bonita...

I'm considering putting up a little sign that says DON'T TOUCH THE CHICKEN!!  as I don't want Bonita to meet the same fate Henrietta, my Christmas chicken met ... to refresh your memory someone stabbed Henrietta multiple times... poor gal... I do have a Ring doorbell now so if something happens I should have some video proof. 

So the weather forecast for next week includes several days of rain... one forecast has about 3 days and another forecast has 5 days... I'm hoping for 5 days... so far my calendar only has the "normal" stuff on it... Elliott, working out and taking a certain family member to lunch one day... I hope to keep it like that and stay home and get some sewing done... and maybe some re-arranging of my sewing room... I've been wanting to do that for months... and I've come to the conclusion I shouldn't try to redo ALL the shelves in one sitting... just concentrate on one unit at a time... and eventually I'll get to all of them. 

I will link up with Kathy's Quilts  today... I plan to spend some time watching the memorial service for Charlie Kirk ... and I wanted to share this ....

this is a building in Waynesville Ohio not far from me ... the young woman, Erica Arndts,  painted it in 4 days and the owner outlined it in red, white and blue lights... here's the FB link to the story... 

Hope you have a great week ahead...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

At loose ends on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - well  to be perfectly honest the tragic events of the last week had me at loose ends...I'll talk more about that at the end of this post in case you want to skip it.  I bounced around from project to project... it took me days and days to get my chicken decor put away and my Fall decor out... I moved things a hundred times and then finally said,  "I'm done." 

So here's a bit of what it looks like... 

I went with my Sandy Gervais bird quilt on the wall... I LOVE this quilt... I designed it myself using all 6 panels and making improv pieced scrappy blocks to fill it out. 

Sandy Gervais does the BEST Fall fabric in my humble opinion and I have made several quilts with her Fall collections. Right now one is on my bed...and one is out on the sofa on the sunroom porch...and  one is on my recliner on the sunroom porch...and there is one downstairs  that needs a binding... and  one that is at the long arm quilter waiting it's turn to be finished. And I started another one last year for Jelly Roll Saturday... I might pick that one up before the month is over.

So where was I?  I remember... the tier tray is a smaller one .... 

 I have my selection from Prairie Schooler  No. 210 Prairie  Fairies ... there are 3 more in this chart that I like to stitch...

And 2 little pillows that are snippet from Bent Creek's Autumn Soapbox...

Outside on the sunroom porch... I have an acorn and squirrel theme going on... 

I have the my pick from Prairie Schooler No. 66 Autumn Samplers ... one of my favorite Prairie Schooler pieces ...

in the middle you can see the Brenda Gervais squirrels... Autumn's Acorn Gathering... and the cute squirrel driving an acorn car... did you know that Brenda Gervais and Sandy Gervais are sisters?  They married two brothers so they still have the same last name and boy are they both so talented. 

and on the bottom shelf I have  the Ewe & Eye & Friends piece called Simply 855. That was the floss number it was charted in but I used an overdyed ... I marvel that I did that alphabet over 1 ... definitely better eyesight back in 2011 when I stitched this one. Gosh I'm getting really old...

On the wall I have Barbara Ana's Autumn Tree... I like all the stuff perched on the branches. 

As I said before I could not settle on what to do crafty wise so I ended up starting not 1, not 2 but 3 new cross stitch pieces ... these were the charts I talked about last week... 

Here's the Pineberry Lane Fancey Blackett' s Brooms....

I love this prim piece on this purple linen... I dyed it with Hyacinth Rit Dye. 

And then I jumped over to the Bent Creek Autumn Soapbox... 

I dyed this linen with some Apple Green Rit Dye and I think I added some tan to it... and that is one BIG pumpkin... the pic below is a better capture of the linen. 

And then I bounced over to Shakespeare's Peddler's Jenny's House... I have a  tiny start... 

I painted this 32 ct linen with Aquamarine Rit Dye and so far I've decided the house will be Crescent Colors Queen Bee, the tree is DMC 3862, the leaves on the tree are Gentle Arts Dried Thyme and the stars are Weeks Carolina Cecil... now I have to pick out some other flosses but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it... and I'll be calling this one Carol's house cause that CC Queen Bee is a great match for the  little yellow brick house I live in. 

So today is my birthday... 72 trips around the sun... my mind doesn't feel old, but my body reminds me with regularity that I am getting there...ok... ok... I have arrived... I am old... but it beats the alternative, right?  I will say that my fall at the end of last year has motivated to try and take care of my body a bit more. I'm working out with a personal trainer once or twice a week to improve my core strength ... I'm back to walking and I'm doing 3 miles a day... I'm trying to keep my mind sharp by doing a bunch of the NYT puzzles every day... I really like the newest one called Strands. Have you ever listened to one of those podcasts that talk about things you should be able to do if you're past 70 and want to live longer?  It is thought provoking.  I'll keep working on my balance and try to improve my hand strength (thank goodness for jar openers)... and I hope to have more trips around the sun. 

I'm celebrating with dinner at my older son's house and I just want to stitch for the rest of the day. The nice "Fall-ish" weather has reverted to Summer... 80's all week... had to shut the windows and turn on the AC... hopefully things will break in about 10 days.  Next week is gonna get busy... again... I thought being retired I'd stay home more than I do...LOL

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... Hope your week ahead is a good one...

happy stitching- 

and if you want to leave now that is okay... but I have a little reflection on the stabbing death of  Iryna Zarutska and the assassination of Charlie Kirk... this is a rambling mess but that's how it is in my brain right now.  

I am having a very hard time expressing myself regarding these tragic events.  I am sad and I am angry. Perhaps it is because I'm old that I am gutted by the senseless killing of young people who had their whole lives ahead of them.  Iryna,  stabbed by a man who's been in custody 14 times and was let loose, and the callous disregard of those around her on the train.   Charlie, who I knew from his YouTube videos.  I was always impressed by the depth and breadth of his knowledge.   And I harken back to bits of wisdom imparted to me as a child.  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" and "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all". We encourage children to "use their words" instead of resorting to violence. To quote Utah's Gov. Cox " Words are not violence. Words are words. Violence is violence."  And it needs to stop. We don't have to agree with everyone all the time, but we can respectfully agree to disagree. Minimizing the stabbing death of Iryna and  celebrating the tragic death of Charlie is disgusting.  The lack of civility and the outright glee of some people,  fills me with sadness. How can you claim to have the moral high ground when you mock a man's death... and you mock his grieving wife. I will never understand this.

I know this is a simplistic take on complicated issues ... and there is so much more I could say... but I'd end up talking for hours.

I'm going to back away from social media for a while... there is so much negativity and down right hatred that I can't deal with. I'm going to sit and stitch and knit and pray... I've been praying a lot... the world needs more prayers.  May the Lord bless and keep you... 

carolfun

HAPPY sewing on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well I've discovered it is hard to get  stuff done if one doesn't stay home... and this week I was out of the house every single day... and the older I get the harder it gets for me to get productive once I've been out and about... I come home, sit down and on numerous occasions I've fell asleep for a little cat nap... now this can't be all my fault... I blame it on comfy recliners... feet up, head back and eyes shut immediately... toss in beautiful weather with the windows open  and a lovely breeze and it is impossible to stay awake...LOL

I did have a couple of brief afternoons of craftyness  and started a new quilt project... now this isn't one of the Christmas ones I want to do...no... this one came out of left field... I found 2 layer cakes of the Julia collection by Crystal Manning in my stash... and to me they have a fun shabby chic/cottage core look... and I wanted to sew something simple but pretty and slightly boho... so I cut the layer cakes into 3" squares ... such nice little stacks...

and I made 9 patch blocks out of those little stacks... quite a few 9 patch blocks...  now I started making pretty blocks... 

and soon realized that if I was going to get the number of blocks I want for a bed size quilt... that number is 64 blocks... I was going to have to use the black prints which I had been avoiding... so I made some blocks with the black prints...

and then I mis-cut about 5 of the 10" squares... rats... so I didn't have enough of some fabrics to do 2 blocks from the same fabric... and that lead to doing some scrappier ones...

and I LOVE these!!  I got 34 blocks from this  one layer cake even with my cutting error ...

and now I'm starting in on the second layer cake and I'm going to try not to make any duplicate blocks ...and I'm going to make a lot more of the mixed up scrappy ones... they make me happy! Now this is reading quite dark at the moment but envision it with yellow sashing and red cornerstones ...

See, doesn't that brighten things up nicely??  If I wasn't lazy I'd take the blocks downstairs and put them on the design wall with the sashing ... but I am lazy... I'll try to do a better layout next week.  I think I have enough of the yellow to do a nice border ... fingers crossed. This is an older collection so I've had to do some searching to find what I want... and this is not an unusual occurrence for me... somehow I fall in love with fabric collections long after they've been released... which turns me into a fabric sleuthing Sherlock Holmes...LOL

This is a great project for me right now... not stressful... just easy fun HAPPY sewing... 

Now I only did a little cross stitch... but any stitch is one more than I had before, right?  Here's where I am on Every Opening Flower... got the door and the windows roughed in... and started adding the paint to the house. I don't want it to look stripey so I'm stitching it in small irregular sections so it looks blotchy...  

Excuse the wrinkles... I will iron it properly when it is complete... which I hope is soon... fingers crossed.

Oh I picked up my Teresa Kogut  Faith, Hope, Peace and Love sampler from Hobby Lobby... I think they did a very nice job!

I love the motifs in this piece and I did a little personalization by making the squirrel in the bottom panel a white squirrel... there are a couple in my neighborhood!

For what it's worth ... I played with the colors   on my phone and this is off... can't get that green linen to show correctly... grrr....it is a bit truer in the first pice

The weather has been GORGEOUS the last week... I've opened up all the windows and turned off the AC.. not quite sweater weather but getting there. I put away some of the Chicken/Garden decor last night... hope to get it all put away today. 

Nick helped me clean out the dead stuff in the window boxes and we put out the plastic pumpkins and put the solar lights inside... they look cool at night!

Now my birthday is next week and I've been thinking about what new project I want to start... two years ago I attempted "7 for my 70th"... and as of this year I've completed 2 of those samplers ... sigh... I only got 4 started before I got sick and ended up spending my actual birthday in the hospital... a September I don't wish to remember... and last year I wasn't in the mood to start something new... I don't know why because I'm almost always in the mood to start another project... and this year I'm debating between a Fall sampler, a Halloween piece and chart that I'm going to add an alphabet too so it meets my criteria for a sampler...

These are my choices...Autumn Soapbox by Bent Creek... I have a piece of linen dyed for this and picked up the flosses at Hobby Lobby yesterday. 

Fancey Blackett's- Brooms  by Pineberry Lane... I have a cool piece of linen I dyed purple that I could use for it. 

and Jenny's House by Theresa Venette... this was the final part of an enormous 8 part sampler called For the Parlor... you can see the whole sampler here... 

I love the house and the giant tree and like I said I would add an alphabet along the bottom...  and while I'm leaning toward this chart I would need to dye some linen for it ...and I looked at the DMC conversion for this and I'm not fond of it... I think I need to do a floss pull of some over dyeds and some DMC and come up with my color choices... the house will definitely be some shade of golden yellow maybe Crescent Color's Queen Bee with an olive green door... just like my house... and I'm thinking some Gentle Arts Dried Thyme for the leaves ... and a slight change to the configuration of those windows... and yeah, this needs some more thought...

Decisions, decisions...

The upcoming week doesn't look too busy... Elliott on Tuesday,  and some exercise,  and one dinner engagement ...so I should have time to prep a birthday sampler... and I do want to get out the Fall decor...it is one of my larger decor collections... I like to do Fall in September and then tweak it for Halloween in October and then change it up a little for Thanksgiving in November... I do LOVE FALL MOST OF ALL!  So I need to get my butt in gear. 

However at the moment my recliner on the sunroom porch is calling my name... the windows are open there is a lovely breeze ... and perhaps I might take a little nap... perhaps...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I hope you are have a nice week!

happy stitching-

carol fun